Desoxazoline derivative of ascidiacyclamide (1), cyclo(–L‐Ile–L‐allo‐threonine–D‐Val–thiazole–)2, was modified to disturb the C2‐symmetry. An Ile1 residue of 1 was replaced for Ala (2) or Val (3), and the D‐Val3 residue was replaced for Val (4). The crystal structures of 1–4 were analyzed by x‐ray diffraction methods. The molecules of all compounds were folded and this type of structure was not observed in x‐ray structures of ascidiacyclamide derivatives so far except for patellamide D. The folding patterns of 1–4 were similar to each other and resembled that of patellamide. The asymmetric modifications at position 1 caused the conformational changes at local area, and these were related with the peptide–peptide and peptide–solvent interactions. Despite the diverse backbone conformation by the epimeric modification at position 3, the entire molecule of 4 was folded. These results mean that (1) the desoxazoline‐ascidiacyclamides favored the folded structures and (2) the modifications of the side chain size at position 1 and the chirality at position 3 brought the local conformational changes to derivatives, suggesting that (3) the lack of the oxazoline block leads to conformational flexibility of 1–4, which accepts the conformational change with no drastic change on the entire structure. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Biopolymers 58: 295–304, 2001